Germination

Life goes on...that really puts my panties in a twist...

The world has refused to stop since my dear man died.

 Keeping busy.

.I put some random English fabrics here as a possible border..

Better let them germinate for decision time.

 Yesterday, before my stress pulled a back muscle..

I put together three 16 patches from one shirt of my dear.

Still desolate here..Family all gone home.
I know my Stephanie cannot work 25 hours a week and sustain herself when she has been working 55 hours weeks..she will have to leave me.

I know my daughter has her own life.

I know I am not the only widow woman in the world.

Knowing is useless.

Between my brain and my heart there is a cement block.

I am shocked.

Mr.O'Quilts really should have said something like:

"Honey..you know I only have 10 more hours to live..so get real now.."

But, he didn't.

Lynsey Turns 6

The 16th was Lynsey's 6th birthday.  She celebrated with a joint yearly physical appointment with her brother who turns 5 in two weeks...Here they are...(before the shots, that is) 

 

Evan and Katie made the cake...Evan was so so so proud...Here they are..showing Granddaddy.

 Evan and Katie made a secret "Frozen" present..He is a proud big bro.
She is thrilled, he is thrilled, I am thrilled...win-win birthday.

Happy Birthday Lynsey!

 This morning the gift came in the form of Brandy and Katie...They took the children for the day.  I thought I was going to cry...again.
Working with my cotton and steel quilt...It certainly would have been dismal if I had stuck to only dark fabrics.
Unfortunately, I put several blocks together wrong...How could that be???  Look left side of quilt bottom four and five...The middle of the squares butt against each other.  I never knew that there was a direction to this pattern.  Oh, well there seems only  to be three or four blocks to be taken apart..not bad.

 I asked my husband if he felt despair. He said not.  I said..oh, come on...we could do despair together..
He said...Go sew:)

Grace Unfolding

Today, from Gratefulness.org
Sometimes I go about pitying myself,
 and all the time I am being carried on great winds across the sky.
Chippewa
Wednesday I was well enough to host my quilting group as I have for the past 15 years.  I did not realize how much I had missed them...and the laughter and the friendship.
 Asthma is the pits!
They basted this scrap top for me...one step in a right sewing direction

Today, the sun came out after a week...Carolina blue skies... A very good thing!
Today, I am well..You were right Katie...10 days it took.  Another very good thing!.
I thought for special me, that it would only take 5 days to get better and not the 10 like other mortals.

Grey is a shade, what is grim?

The sad and scary note, is that my dearly beloved is entering into Stage 3 of ALS.

Stages of ALS
He has been sleeping in his hospital bed for four days.  Great fatigue and sleepiness.
At first we thought it was because he kept asking for his Ativan to be doubled so he would not have anxiety...Believe me, I would be all for that!!!.
 But, the Hospice nurse said this morning that he was still on quite a low dosage.
She feels that his body is just tiring out.
Accepting life on its own terms instead of what I want it to be... is my struggle.
Thank you!! Thank you!! Thank you!!
For your emails, your comments, your gifts of love.
Without you, I would be quite unable to see the light.
xxoo

One Step at a Time..

When following a pattern that someone else designed, it is easy to go one step at a time because you have given up control.  If I once said that I would not ever do this, I was wrong.  Powerlessness is the word of the day.

  I was wrong about a lot of things that I thought I would never do..

.Life was different then. 

 So here we are...step 2 in the pattern process and I am happy as a clam!!

Progress, not perfection!!

The Mr. and I went to lunch today.  It took a lot out of him, but he went.  We went to the pancake place where he could swallow something soft, covered in syrup. He was totally exhausted when we returned.  However....He was delighted that he was able to go at all.

So am I.

Candy and Jeff, thank you for lunch and a lovely catch up.

The night....

Tonight I finished three more travel salad bowl covers...That part is good...

 Worked a bit on this....That part is good....

And, then.....I started making gifts...trying out a new tute...Below is a failed Modge Podge project.....of course, being me....instead of trying the new tute on one item before getting more...
...NO NO NO..
I bought 20 of them, only to find out that the tute is a failure for me...Soooo frustrated...

In trying to fix it all....I cut my finger with the rotary cutter....and so...I hate to report...that it has all come down to this:

Dylan's Daycare Quilt....process

Process

I am doing the process thing to help me with this jelly roll cut up.  Putting it online gives a perspective that you cannot get somewhere else.  Already, I can see one of the issues...The lattice is too wide.  The top one looks better because the value on the border is similar, but it is too pinkish...I think I must be in my using up solid pink stage!

 Below was supposed to be a primary border, but I see that there is too much motion in it, so I stopped.

 The blue has potential because of the value, but maybe the chicken coop wire is not needed.

 The white just doesn't cut it.  So none of these works...yet.  This is why I have drawers of precuts..by me that is...These borders are all three inches and will now go in the three inch draw for a life somewhere else.  Stopping now at the midnight hour....just sharing my process on the design wall on a Saturday night.

And why am I putting so much effort into a cuddle quilt??  I do not know.  Wanna get it right and too strung out to work on something that needs concentration.

Actually, an exercise in value is not a waste of time.  

Pears and Patches

A Little Night Music....is my sewing machine humming along...While I was trying to clean up, I found 12 little  red squares.  That took care of the cleaning up.  Took out that drawer of 1.5 inch strips and started something...

 My daughter made poached pears tonight.  Yummy...I never had that before.  I liked this picture of the treat on my Riviera ware...She had it with butter pecan ice cream and cream.

 She liked the picture with the cinnamon stick...I ate it with the whipped cream left over from my cake last night.

Neither picture really does it justice...Thought I would share the night's doings before bedtime....

Project Boxes and Process.....

I really love my project boxes.  I do not have the attention span to sit and make a quilt from start to finish.  I like them to stew on the design wall and/or to make quilts in sections.  Today, I opened these two boxes, finding blocks already made.  It was so easy to put the main parts of the quilts together.  Now, I can either put them back in their own boxes for future borders...or I can work on them now...my choice.  So much fun...

The fast cuddle

With a hundred plus 5" squares in the box already...It was easy to put together a boy cuddle quilt top.

 Basting it now so it is ready for the Guild on Wednesday.  I am happy to say that I am all caught up with my monthly hospital cuddle donations!!

Quilting at my house..or the way we, I mean I..am....

Bored now with my political quilt, it has been laid to rest with the rest of my UFO's..eg zigzag, potholders, etc etc...I turn to strips.  The last bit of table cleaning revealed these strips.  I had thought I would make a four patch/one patch...again... with the tons of 2.5 inch strips that I have.  Not too exciting here, just could not make it work.  My eye then  turned to the Granny Block and the Ginger Monkey's good tutorial.

 My use-me-up scraps....being so very dull... I ended up with this instead.  Life is short, you know.  

Story of my life.  I think that Donna (do not let it go to your head now:) is right.  Getting rid of my scraps just may be the best....gets me into my good or gooder stuff faster..  There is just NO way to use up scraps.  They are a bit like rabbits...no offense to bunnies:)

I cannot do it all....

Maybe I cannot..really I cannot...sad, but I cannot.  I have to pick and choose.  So...out goes ....The Japanese X...It was fun to make a few blocks, but too much work for me for the effort...bye bye Japanese blocks....

Then  really wanted to do this:  Barbara Brackman's womens' rights quilt a long..., 

especially when I saw this awesome use of fabric....but it is too much(:...sad....I have so many UFO/WIP's to concentrate on....like these:   My zigzag quilt..I only have 18 made and I love this quilt.

 My other political quilt...Medallion style...top not nearly done...and political season is almost over TBTG..so I have to get going..

 My hoarded Civil War fabric...I think it will be a basket quilt...still a dream...

 The English charm bracelet quilt...Marie brought some charms for me back from the Olympics!!  Yeah, Marie!!

Then of course there is the cleaning of the sewing room and the millions of tops unquilted..

One thing at a time around here...so nothing new for now...except those baby quilts...and maybe.....

Lattice and the Siggy...

My part in the siggy is the lattice...It will be latticed one more time...Just postin...cuz..I do not want folks to think I am using my condition to be a slacker   :)

FYI  I have 15 four patches....11 inches each.

border process

The side borders are on.  I am thinking of leaving the top border without the cats...What do you think...?  I have to go to bed now because my brain is no longer working and needs to rest...Tomorrow brings clarity..I hope.....

Messing around with fabric...

• Tonight, before bed, I am reminded of my favorite version of Wind in the Willows..(Kenneth Grahame, 1987)...When Toad, reclusive Badger, and sensible Rat...were so happy just..."messing around in boats"!!
  So, with that song singing in my head, I took these 9 orphan blocks and started cutting into them.
  
   I did some yellow slashing...and 
  
  
  
  I had the best time, messing around with fabric!
  
  

Red and black quilt and red and black eye

My eye and the rest of me is now in its glory.  I am all  red, black and blue.  But TBTG for all the wonderful fudge and M&M's I eat because I am well padded, thus breaking nothing but my pride.  Below is this quilt on my design wall...trying to decide on the size of the cross.  I think that the picture is too close up to judge.

I am a bit discouraged.  I cannot think clearly.  The hospital called for an eval of my visit.  I gave them a glowing report of the ER doctor...But later I realized that the doctor's name was not Abernathy, it was Scarborough...Jeeze.Why would they even call someone who had had a concussion for that info...They should have waited till 2013..My husband drove me to see my mother because I am still a bit dizzy.  We had a nice visit and I am still dizzy..Poor me...Well, the one spot that is not bruised is my typing hand..you know, that one which is so able to press "Order now" on the following:

Fabric.com $3.95 blowout sale

Sew Me a Song Etsy shop

Equilter--50% off sale

Hancocks of Paducah--50% off sale.

I mean really, I could have died and then what????  No more fabric shopping??  Gotta get it done now while I am still here..  Off to bed, again, says the whiner.......

The red block process and the concussion progress

I am feeling better...11:30 at night and well enough to sew these blocks together and put them on the design wall.  For past quilts, I have made so many of these 2.5 or 3 inch blocks attached to 6" strips, that I decided to try something different.  The dizziness has finally gone from my head..TBTG

Every 4th of July, someone knocks on my door to ask if it is ok with us that they use the cul-de-sac for fireworks.  I always say that it is not my cul-de-sac and I am fine with what they want to do.  Three families, I think with lots of children.  They certainly know what they are doing.  They are very safe with water and rules, etc.  AND they must spend at least 3,000$$$ between them all for these fireworks.  Every year my husband and I sit on the outside bench and watch.  City of Charlotte has nothing on these folks!! It was truly wonderful. I did feel sorry for my mother though.  She loves the 4th of July and the flag.  My father was career Air Force.  But, it could not be helped.  I couldn't go there and she couldn't come here.  She sounded so sad.  Maybe she was just worried about me.  Me, a silly goose with a goose egg or two, or three or four!!

Multitasking or Ennui??

I have decided to quilt this tomorrow.  Why not?  It has only been sitting around waiting for forever.. I have always loved fabric...smelling it, breathing it, touching it...and sometimes even using it.  But, I was sketchy about folks who also loved thread...till now.  Till now and my Aurifil.  This perfect shade of light blue for the bobbin...just right for the backing.  Sigh.....

 I open this box and I feel like it is Christmas...glory....

 Certainly not delaying...but..before I quilt the Christmas angel quilt, I "needed" to sew these two patch blocks into four patches...for a rainy day.....

With an apparent desire for a change of direction..I whipped up a few small four patches.

 When I put my new gifted blocks next to my medallion start...I wondered if I should just make it a political quilt...Maybe in this season, I just have not had enough politics?? Tigger reflects no political affiliation what-so-ever.

 Finally sharing the successful birthday party...My son with his son..and a dirty wormy cake! Perfect!

Monkey Quilt top 2 or dirt clods from brain partially cleared..

Finally, something to blog about...process.  Magen, I think you do not read my blog...so I am showing the tops and back of your baby's quilt here first.  So if you do see it, pretend you don't.  And if you do not want to pretend, then I hope you like it...I hope to baste it tomorrow and get going...sigh...Hard to do much with dirt clods on the brain.....

 Short for Alexander...your Xander:)